Moving on With Dignity
by SunnyZim
Summary: ."Courage is not the absence of fear, but simply moving on with dignity despite that fear." Jacob asks Leah an important question and he may be surprised at the answer...


**A/N: OK, seeing as I wrote an Emily fic, giving Emily a voice, I felt I needed to write one for Leah too. Fair's fair! Do you remember in _Breaking Dawn_ how Leah says that she wants to forget Sam and imprint? Yeah, well, I don't know if I think that's very consistent with Leah's character, so here is how I think she _would _have answered if Meyer had been consistent. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this!!:-) Seriously, your encouraging reviews are what keep me writing:)**

**Disclaimer: As always, I don't own Twilight. Not even a little.**

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**Moving on With Dignity**

_Do you want to forget the way you feel about Sam? _Jacob had asked her, and at first she had thought _yes, yes I do. No more pain. No more burning, aching memories that wake me up in the night, hot, sweaty and longing for arms that aren't there. _

But that was only her initial reaction. Because really it was so much more complicated than that (a habit that life has, she had observed). Did she still want to love Sam, feel the agony of loving someone with all her heart and soul and seeing them love someone else instead of her? No. But did she want to _forget_ that she had ever loved him, wipe it from her memory as if it had never been? That's what would happen if she imprinted. Her feelings for Sam would evaporate overnight like so much smoke. It would be as if she had never loved him, never kissed him, never wrapped her arms around him and whispered _I love you_ in the dark. All her past with him would become but a dream to which it would be impossible to return even if she wanted. Did she truly want that?

It would be the easy way out certainly. But since when had Leah Clearwater ever opted for the easy way out? The truth was that in so many ways, ways which she would never admit except in the _very secret, very deep _recesses of her heart that even the pack mind could not plunder, Sam had shaped her into the woman she was today. He was her first love, her first date, her first kiss. He was the first man, apart from her father, to tell her she was beautiful, to tell her he loved her. It was he who had encouraged her to learn to play the guitar and to try out for the track team at school. He had always held her to the highest and urged her to be the best that she could be. She had grown and developed as a result of loving him. And yes, he had hurt her. Just as he had ripped up her cousin's beautiful face, he had ripped up her heart. The only difference was that whilst he had sat by Emily's bedside day and night, holding her hand, praying for her to heal, he had left Leah bleeding on the ground.

And Leah _was _bitter. She hated Sam for what he had done to her. And she loved him still because he was _Sam_. How true that hate and love oft go hand in hand. And it would be so _easy, _so _breathtakingly easy _if she just imprinted and was able to forget about him. All that raw emotion, all that pain would vanish. _Poof. _But deep down, Leah knew that she didn't _want _the easy way out. Because when she did stop loving Sam, she wanted it to be her _choice. _She wanted to know that _she had moved on. _Not just had her memory magically wiped into a blank slate. She wanted to be able to look back and see the path that she had traveled, rocks, thorns and all, and know that _I did it. By myself. I made it. _Because Leah knew that healing does not come by sticking a plaster over a wound and pretending that it was no longer there. You cannot heal a wound by making it look pretty on the surface, because beneath it is still rotting and festering, eating away within. Healing does not and cannot come in a single moment of time. It is a _process. _The wound must close upwards from deep within, slowly drawing together until it comes closed _naturally, _a_ natural union. _And yes, there will be an ugly scar left, and it will not look so pretty, but beneath is solid, healthy flesh that will never give way again.

Reflecting on this, Leah came to her answer. And when Jacob repeated his question, she smiled a wolfy grin and thought back _No. I don't want to _forget_ the way I feel, as if it had never been. I want to move on by sheer choice and determination, so that even though I remember, I am all the stronger for it. Because Jacob, _she bunched her muscles ready to run faster than ever, _I am no coward._

**A/N: Please review and let me know what you think! your reviews make my day!:-)  
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